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Good practice Imported

Lake Urmia Restoration Program (ULRP)

Iran · Urmia · See the Iran profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 33% 53/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A decade-long Iran–UNDP programme cutting agricultural water use 25% and raising irrigation efficiency ~42% around Ramsar-listed Lake Urmia; independent monitoring shows recent water-level gains, though researchers debate how much is programme-driven versus rainfall.

11,000+ farmers
Farmers engaged (as of 2025 UNDP reporting)
2,800 farmers
Farmers directly trained (as of 2025 UNDP reporting)
200 experts / 12 NGOs count
Local experts and partner NGOs employed (as of 2025 UNDP reporting)
800+ trained / 250+ placed count
Rural women trained / placed in green jobs (as of 2025 UNDP reporting)
25 % (participating areas)
Reduction in agricultural water use (cumulative to latest reporting)
≈42 % (participating areas)
Rise in irrigation efficiency (cumulative to latest reporting)
120 cm
Lake water-level rise (7 months to April 2026)
>$1 billion
Cumulative reported spend (all funders) (since 2014)
Lake Urmia Restoration Program (ULRP)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Iran Department of Environment & UNDP, with Government of Japan co-financing
Period
2014–2025 (Phase 7, ongoing)
Keywords
water resources, wetland restoration, biodiversity, agriculture

Context

The 10-year Lake Urmia Restoration Program (ULRP) was approved by Iran's government in March 2014 and is implemented by Iran's Department of Environment with UNDP support and Government of Japan co-financing. It targets Lake Urmia, once one of the world's largest hypersaline lakes and a designated Ramsar Wetland and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, which had shrunk by roughly 90% of its surface area by the mid-2010s.

Activities

The programme centres on reducing agricultural water demand in the lake's catchment: UNDP's most recent (2025) reporting states it has engaged over 11,000 farmers, directly trained 2,800 of them, employed 200 local experts and 12 partner NGOs, and trained more than 800 rural women with over 250 placed in green jobs, alongside efficient-irrigation investment.

Results

Reported results include a 25% reduction in agricultural water use and an approximately 42% rise in irrigation efficiency in participating areas, and the lake's water level rose 120cm in the seven months to April 2026 per Iranian environment ministry data.

Conclusions

Independent academic analysis (World Development, 2024) attributes the lake's partial recovery since around 2019 to a combination of above-average rainfall and programme interventions, and explicitly cautions that cleanly separating climatic variability from programme impact remains disputed in the scientific literature.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Iran Department of Environment, UNDP, 200 local experts and 12 partner NGOs, rural women placed in green jobs

Conditions for success

  • multi-donor financing (Iran, UNDP, Government of Japan)
  • farmer engagement and training at scale (11,000+ engaged, 2,800 directly trained)
  • sustained programme continuity across multiple implementation phases (now Phase 7)

Common failure modes

  • academic analysis explicitly disputes how much of the lake's recovery is attributable to the programme versus above-average rainfall, complicating impact attribution

Where it fits

Governance type
national government programme with UN and bilateral co-financing
Scale
regional (lake catchment)
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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